6th December - A walk around the kitchen

There's been plenty happening over the last few days, as things are getting closer and closer to The Big Day!

All photos today were taken in the kitchen which, in an old farmhouse like this, has been the centre of the home for many, many years.

Although it's in the kitchen, this plate isn't for eating off! It sits on the worktop during the Christmas period, and is a little reminder of the First Christmas.

Happy Saint Nick's day! The 6th December seems a perfect day to share with you our special Christmas tea tray. It's always exciting when this fabulous piece of kitchen jolliness comes out!

There are many Christmas CDs to choose from in our house, but this is by far my favourite. The only problem is the discs keeping going missing, so I keep buying more. I think we must have 6 or 7 of these CDs in the house.

Several months ago, I spent a very fun couple of days in the kitchen, preserving some of our Stempster produce. I'm hoping that some of them make an appearance over the Christmas period. Onion marmalade at Christmas breakfast, or pickled beetroot? Jude made a special Stempster Chutney using only produce that was grown here.

Speaking of food prep, this is something Mum was doing today... prepping some deliciously-smelling creamed mushrooms. Oh my goodness - they smelled so good!! I had to rummage in the freezer to find them for the photo though.

We have our Christmas dinner on Boxing Day, not Christmas Day, so these will make an appearance on the 26th.

We had planned to make and decorate Christmas biscuits this week, but I have been quite poorly. Ginny gave us a lovely surprise when she made all these (and plenty more!) lovely biscuits. We'll decorate them tomorrow. Baking is not one of Ginny's favourite pastimes, so we were all so touched when she did this for us!

Well, we'll be back tomorrow for the Saturday 7th! There's still plenty more to photograph, even before our decorations go up on the 14th!